I wish their habitats were sort of exclusive, so if you built fire giants you can't build normal giants or frost giants. Same with the dragon one - if I start pumping out gold dragons then some of the other eggs don't make much sense.

Ah, this is the update I was waiting for.

This for me is the most important thing that is going to be in the next update/dlc.

It's the new diplomacy/alignment/relation system, a system that allows for 'Vassal states'!

http://ageofwonders.com/dev-journal-vassals-and-enhanced-diplomacy/

Next week the update DLC/will be announced.

eXplorminate will be interviewing Lennart Sas of Triumph shortly after their announcement, perhaps live on Twitch, so stay tuned for more info on that!

Good achievement!   That site is surely rising FAST in the TBS community!   I actually thought you were the founder until I checked their Steamforums 

I am the founder different name here, DevilDogFF there even though I had DevildogFF on these forums for a bit.

Quoting XWerewolfX, reply 180

Quoting Campaigner,

reply 179

Quoting XWerewolfX,

reply 178

eXplorminate will be interviewing Lennart Sas of Triumph shortly after their announcement, perhaps live on Twitch, so stay tuned for more info on that!

 

Good achievement!   That site is surely rising FAST in the TBS community!   I actually thought you were the founder until I checked their Steamforums 

 

I am the founder different name here, DevilDogFF there even though I had DevildogFF on these forums for a bit.

One of the very few reasons I wish these forums had signatures. I too changed my forum name recently (From "Leo in WI") to coincide with my names on both Twitch and Steam. It'd be nice to have sigs to remove the need to remember to manually enter it in all posts, which I did for a short while, just so people can recognize you from previous conversations.

I remember both of you guys, so yeah it sucks that you changed names

- Heavenfall

I haven't changed mine as much as merged it. DevildogFF is still an account here but all of my games are on this one so I stopped using it a cohole years ago

Why you got two accounts?    You didn't like the name of one and just created a new one?

Get hyped! 14th april release.

http://ageofwonders.com/eternallords/ 

The public beta on Steam has started for the free 1.5 patch that is accompanying the Ethernal Lords DLC. Both will be released on april 14th.

The release will be for Windows, Mac and Linux!

http://ageofwonders.com/open-beta-for-update-v1-5-kicks-off/

Especially the Diplomacy stuff in the free update looks neat!

Diplomacy AI Improvements.  The AI now uses personalities, with them adopting diplomatic, neutral or aggressive playstyles with accompanying alignment and specialization choices.  The AI has learned more actions and feels less like a black box. For example there’s a set of new messages giving reasons for declined proposals. Settling near an AI’s domain, trespassing its domain or demanding a tribute are sure ways to provoke a response. Computer opponents now request alliances to take out a very powerful player and also learned new negotiating tricks like counter offering, demands and gifting.

Full list of patch notes:

http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/update-v1-5-patch-notes/

About the Necromancer class:

http://ageofwonders.com/classes/necromancer/

About the Eternal Lords dlc:

http://ageofwonders.com/eternal-lords-expansion-announced-coming-to-windows-mac-and-linux/

Wow, I didn't know AOW 3 had so many units etc. Tibbles, a forum user has compiled a nice infographic to compare all installments of age of wonders.

http://ageofwonders.com/the-age-of-wonders-series-in-numbers/?paged=2

Necromancer Frostling video live at Gamespot:

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/exclusive-age-of-wonders-iii-eternal-lords-frostli/2300-6424264/

there are Lets Plays all over the EXplorminate YouTube channel, FYI, of the Eternal Lords expansion!

Interview with Lennart Sas of Triumph Studios (part 2):

http://www.explorminate.com/#!Interview-with-Triumph-Studios-Part-2/c15kj/552470cb0cf21933cd4472a8

New victory condition, making possible an entirely different playing style:

http://ageofwonders.com/dev-journal-the-unifier-victory-condition/

^awesome!!

triumph really gets that these games are tools for strategizing an epic story.

although i havent played endless legend, how people can say it competes baffles me?  everything about it, from aesthetics to gameplay, just looks so mechanical and devoid of character, like i heard endless space was.

Here is a new let's play video by one of the developers, showing amongst other things:

- the Tigran race 

- the unity victory

- Unity beacons

- Vassal cities

- Peacekeeper speicialization

- Race Governance upgrade options

http://ageofwonders.com/new-video-tigran-unity-victory-live/

epic.

...

?

anybody?

ES and EL are great games i dont really understand why people say they are devoid of character.

Each and every race in those games plays differently. The mechanics are very well designed and the lore is well written.

Personally I loved the aesthetics, I'd rate endless legend's world map far above AOW3 map for example. The resource system and minor faction system just feel so right in that game. They also had a few fresh ideas for tactical combat beating out the ol' zerg/grind in AoW3. Endless legend has an actual research system with "ages" to dive into, whereas AoW3 has pre-selected disciplines and a bit of randomness in what spells appear. Not to mention the empire building in AoW3 is atrociously boring, whereas building up territories in endless legends is actually fun due to the many complexities involved in placing cities and using the specialized resources. Races are far more diverse in endless legend, of course. 

You know, I was initially going to say that AoW3 was the better game because of amount of content and better tactical graphics. But I don't think that's right. Even with AOW3 having its first major DLC I still think endless legend beats it. Looking at my time played, Endless Legend is at 96 hours and AoW3 at 50 hours.

Ultimately I think my main issue, however, is not covered above. Playing AoW3 felt like playing any other fantasy 4x game. It's polished, the components are all there, but it's just not pushing the envelope. The first DLC helped with that in a way (new victory condition) and now the second DLC will add further complexity by another victory condition and race relations. Playing Endless Legend, on the other hand, was very much a breath of fresh air in many aspects.

thank you!

el does intrigue me quite a bit, im just leery of jumping down any more rabbit holes atm, and worlds of magic has caught my eye as well.  plus ive read reports of weak ai and repetitive end turning in el, and something about what ive seen so far just seems stale and gamey.

however it looks like all of these games will be getting big updates here pretty soon that will flesh them out, ill revisit this topic afterwords.

these updates for aow3 just look like they will be giving the others a good run for their money.

And now it 66% off on Steam(13,59 €) and 33% on first expansion

for those that are waiting for a sales pitch

That's pretty much my feelings as well.  There's a few things I think AoW3 did better (even much better) than EL, but I still prefer playing EL.